Free Lazy Bones by Mark Billingham Page B

another photo. It's the first thing he looks for and he almost shouts out loud when he feels it tucked down between the pages of the letter itself. He pul s it out and slaps it down flat on his chest without
    65
    looking. Then slowly he lifts it up, little by little, moaning out loud as he catches his first glimpse of her. The hood has gone, but this time her back is to ithe camera, her head lowered.
    Just a glimpse of shortish hir, the face hidden. She is sitting on her heels, her wrists fastened securely behind her, the shadows fal ing across her shoulder blades and beautiful, round arse...
    The door opens and he is not alone any more. He quickly draws his knees up to hide the erection and presses the picture flat against his chest again. As his cel mate drops with a grunt on to the bed opposite, Welch is already closing his eyes, every last detail of Jane's nakedness clearly recal ed and perfectly visible on the back of his eyelids.
    66
    7 MAY, 1976
    'Ladies and gentlemen, you may find this surprising, but I wish, for the next few minutes, to concentrate on the evidence of a witness cal ed by the de fence ... I invite you to consider the evidence given here by Detective Sergeant Derek Turnbul . Sergeant Turnbul 's record as a police officer is exemplary and I believe we should set great store by his testimony. We should take seriously the words we have heard him speak during this very disturbing case.
    'I want you to remember these words...
    'We should remember Sergeant Turnbul 's words about the interviews he carried out with the woman who accuses my client of this serious offence. He spoke about the "confusion", about the "lack of focus'; he conceded under cross-examination that this woman's thinking "seemed to be al over e place". I ask you, should an incident that was, al egedly, so distressing not be easy to recal accurately? Should it not be seared into the memory? Yes, of course. And yet this woman cannot be sure about exact times. There is no consistent description of what my client was wearing at the time of the supposed attack. Just a good deal of hot air and a lot of irrelevant nonsense about aftershave . . .
    'We should remember Sergeant Tztrnbul 's words when he described the results of the physical examination. Nothing was found beneath this woman's fingernails. Nothing was found to suggest any resistance whatsoever. Sergeant Turnbul repeated to the court what she said when questioned
    about this fact. "I couldn't fight back," she said.
    'Could not? Or did not want to?
    'We should remember too, the Sergeant's words when describing the circumstances of the first interview, the first physical examination. This examination was, in his words, "'worse than useless", taking place as it did
    67
    the morning after the al eged attack and after the so-cal ed victim had showered. Remember his col eague's words when describing the dress which you have been shown as Exhibit A?
    "Too nice to wear to work." I put these things together, ladies and gentlemen, and I come up with an altogether different version of what happened in that stockroom in December of last year...
    'Could not that dress have been torn during the frenzied, and consensual, bout of lovemaking to which my client freely admits? Could not the bruising be no more than the marks of excessive passion? Could not that shower have been taken, yes, to wash away the smel of my client, but only so as to hide the truth of her ongoing sexual relationship with him from her husband?
    'I have asked you to remember the words of a police officer whose evidence was intended to damn the man I represent here today. Instead, unwittingly, I'm sure, he has done quite the opposite. I have asked you to consider these words and I can see that you are doing just that. I can see from your faces, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, that these words have caused you, quite rightly, to doubt. If you doubt, as you surely must, the truth of what this woman claims to have happened, then I know